DR. HENRY SEARLE GAYE 199 



humour certainly came to his assistance on that 

 occasion. 



I think it will be admitted that Collings turned out 

 to be one of the best Devonshire huntsmen known in 

 modern times. He was never at a loss, and you never 

 saw him hesitate. Everything was done with system 

 and regularity ; he never went over the same ground 

 twice, either in drawing or in casting ; and he never 

 deceived his hounds. He would give them plenty of 

 time before making his cast. I have seen him more 

 than once, with a catchy scent, link up, as it were, by 

 a series of good casts, a succession of bursts into quite 

 a tolerable run. At other times, he would sit still and 

 never touch the pack, knowing he could not help 

 them. One of such occasions was in the course of a 

 run which took us through the small enclosures close 

 to Ashburton. Collings said to me : " This is a funny 

 fox : you never know, when he goes into a field, 

 where he is going to leave it. I daren't touch them." 

 The fox was dawdling some way in front of the hounds, 

 aware, apparently, that scent was too bad for them to 

 overhaul him. 



Now and again, but very seldom, he would make 

 a back cast that people attributed to his harrier 

 novitiate. I think it was oftener due to other causes, 

 as in one particular instance that recurs to me at the 

 moment. The hounds had just reached the moor and 

 checked there, those of the field who were up being in 

 an adjoining enclosure immediately below the pack 

 and separated from it by the boundary wall. As 

 Collings came up, the hounds, in casting, swung 

 themselves down the hill and broke the wall into the 

 field where we were, and he first held them on in that 

 direction, which was " back." Everyone thought 

 that the fox, as was the fact, had gone to moor ; and 



